Turning WMV into DVD...

[SEALs1230]

This involves many different aspects of DVD making so I wasnt sure which forum to post under so I decided here should do fine. Anyways, my cousin downloaded some video clips of different rally car races. They are in wmv format. Here is an example of one of them: http://www.fsr-rally.com/wrc2003/wrc2003.php He downloaded 16 of these little movies and them burned them as a data CD which he game to me with the request of making a DVD so he can play it on his stand alone player. First, this is the guide that I usually use to convert avi files to DVD, do you think that this will work to turn the wmv to DVD: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/186739.php Second, I would like to make a little first play introduction that will play when he puts the DVD into the player. To do this I will need to edit the wmv files, which I usually use virtualdub to do (avi files). However, virtualdub wont accept the wmv file so that I can cut them and stuff. Do you know of any software that will allow me to do this? I found this but never heard of it: https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=Windows+Media+Encoder&s=&orderby=Name&hits=5...res=&listuser= What do you guys think? Third, once converted to DVD with TMPEnc Plus, will I be able to author the converted files with DVD-lab? (I know I can with a avi converted to DVD but I never tried a wmv before) Last, is there a way to just download the movies in another format such as avi or something that will make everything easier? In my research I read a post saying that there was a program or something that will allow you to download the wmv as VOB instead. Is there something like this so that I can save it as an avi or something? I hope I asked these questions clearly enough. If not let me know and i will try to clarify better what I want to do.

[matj]

I don't know if the guide that you are referring to will turn the wmv to dvd but maybe you could try converting the wmv to avi with Windows Movie Maker.

[DarrellS]

Buy & Wear your opposition to the Bush administration. Wear it often and tell everyone where you got it: www.operationdissent.com

Posting political views is against board rules.

If you want to just convert to DVD, VSO DivXToDVD will do that.

For what you are looking to do, drag the files into the window of TMPGEnc (browse/file/open will not work) and save as an AVI file (for editing in VirtualDub). Edit in VirtualDub and use DivXToDVD to convert to DVD VIDEO_TS folder and author with your authoring program of choice.

I tried to download the file that you linked to but was unable to do so.

[seekninfo]

Try TMPgEnc Xpress ver 3.0. It can convert directly from wmv to mpeg2 and then to DVD using your favorite authoring tool. The same software can also convert it to avi. You can then use VDub to edit it anyway you want it.

[SEALs1230]

Buy & Wear your opposition to the Bush administration. Wear it often and tell everyone where you got it: www.operationdissent.com

Posting political views is against board rules.

I'm sorry. I thought that rule applied to the text in the post, therefore since it was in my signiture not my post I thought it would be fine.

I tried to download the file that you linked to but was unable to do so.

Not sure why it wasnt working, I tried it on different computers using the link from my above post and it worked fine on all of them.

For what you are looking to do, drag the files into the window of TMPGEnc (browse/file/open will not work) and save as an AVI file (for editing in VirtualDub). Edit in VirtualDub and use DivXToDVD to convert to DVD VIDEO_TS folder and author with your authoring program of choice.

I tried this and for one of the files (6min) it got through 50 seconds and I already had an avi file that was over a gig in size. Can you be more specific with settings please because I might be messing something up that would cause the output size of the avi file to be so large. Also, the output file had no audio and the video was moving in slow motion (not choppy, just slow motion). The technique I used was to just open up windows explorer and drag the file into TMPGEnc Plus and then I clicked File/Output to File/AVI file/Save. I left everything as default.

Also, I havent researched yet but while I'm posting i figure I'll ask, for the introduction, each clip has its own music track. So If i just make the introduction by taking pieces of these clips, it will just be pieces of random songs. I would like to make it so that I can have my own song playing during the intro. Would I do this by stripping the audio with Vdub somehow and then adding my own back in when I encode the avi (if I ever make one) to MPEG with TMPGEnc Plus?

[DarrellS]

I'm sorry. I thought that rule applied to the text in the post, therefore since it was in my signiture not my post I thought it would be fine.

Well, if the Mods don't have a problem with you carrying a sign around bashing the president of the United States and his administration then I guess it's OK. Just as long as you don't say anything bad about the democrats or atheists. Most of the posters on here seem to be from other countries anyway so I guess it's OK to bash America as a whole. Your sig is also an advertisement for a $15 T-shirt which is against board rules also.

I tried this and for one of the files (6min) it got through 50 seconds and I already had an avi file that was over a gig in size. Can you be more specific with settings please because I might be messing something up that would cause the output size of the avi file to be so large. Also, the output file had no audio and the video was moving in slow motion (not choppy, just slow motion). The technique I used was to just open up windows explorer and drag the file into TMPGEnc Plus and then I clicked File/Output to File/AVI file/Save. I left everything as default.

Well, default is uncompressed so of coarse the files are going to be humongous. I assumed that you knew something about video editing and compression. All of the setting are right there when you go to save the file. Video compression (at least lossless Huffyuv) and audio compression. Make sure you have the right WMA decompressors installed or you won't get audio in the file.

I have no idea what the files you have are. The only ones that I could get from the website are under 1 MB and are 320x240 WMV1 and very poor quality. I guess you have to subscribe to the website to get the better files.

As for the intro video that you want to make, you need to make the video the same length of whatever audio that you decide to put in. You don't need to strip the audio out in VDub but you need to choose Wav audio and full processing mode under audio. I would compress the video to XviD.

Since you can convert the WMV files to DVD with DivXToDVD, I wouldn't worry about the audio when converting to AVI since the only reason you need to convert to AVI is to make your intro clip which you will add your own audio to.

You might want to do a test conversion of one WMV in DivXToDVD to make sure it's gonna work. Also, you're not dragging the files from the CD to TMPGEnc are you? That could explain why everything is messed up. You need to get the files into your computer before you edit them.

[jimmalenko]

I'd just convert all your clips to DVD-compliant MPEG files directly using http://members.dodo.net.au/~jimmalenko/AVI2DVD.htm or any of the other conversion guides in the Guides section. If you're authoring with DVD-lab you can add your intro clip as a firstplay item so it will play once-only before the menu appears. It would be much, much easier IMO (and not to mention retain best quality possible) than trying to convert one file to AVI, then edit, then re-convert.


... and virtualdub 1.3c will open most wmv files directly, too ...

[DarrellS]

VirtualDub 3c will not open this file. I have found that the program will open very few WMV files. They usually have to be very old ASF files for VDub to open which is why most people don't bother using the program anymore. There are too many editing programs that will handle WMV and some programs that aren't supposed to but will open some files if you change the extension like MGI Videowave.

VideoEditMagic is a good program for editing WMV.

[DarrellS]

Not sure why it wasnt working, I tried it on different computers using the link from my above post and it worked fine on all of them.

Here is a link that I finally found that works. It has the 2004 season if you want to download it.

http://alakazoo.com/News/

Not really sure why you are trying to make a DVD from these files though. They are pretty bad in quality. I converted the 2003 clip to DVD (MPEG2-AC3/VOB) and it looks really bad on my 19 inch monitor. Can only imagine what it would look like on a bigger TV screen.

Pretty much all WMV/ASF files are junk unless they are high resolution/high bitrate WMV9 files.

[SEALs1230]

I'm sorry. I thought that rule applied to the text in the post, therefore since it was in my signiture not my post I thought it would be fine.

Well, if the Mods don't have a problem with you carrying a sign around bashing the president of the United States and his administration then I guess it's OK. Just as long as you don't say anything bad about the democrats or atheists. Most of the posters on here seem to be from other countries anyway so I guess it's OK to bash America as a whole. Your sig is also an advertisement for a $15 T-shirt which is against board rules also.

Actually, I just put that up for my cousins, they are running the website and I actually disagree with most of the stuff they say, I was just helping a family member out. I took the signature completely off, I dont want to break any rules. I value this website and everyones hard work too much to just go and get banned for something that I dont even believe in myself.

As for everyone saying that they are crappy quality, if I were to be making this for myself I would never use these clips, however, I figured it would be a good learning experience because I have never done alot of this stuff. I have made introductions to movies but I have never used custom audio. Also, I recently got DVD-Lab and wanted to try that because I have never used that before either.

You might want to do a test conversion of one WMV in DivXToDVD to make sure it's gonna work. Also, you're not dragging the files from the CD to TMPGEnc are you? That could explain why everything is messed up. You need to get the files into your computer before you edit them.

I did put them on my computer first but still couldnt figure out why they arent working with audio. But I did get them to work using the trial TMPGEnc Xpress 3. The reason I wanted audio is because there are some parts of the intro that will have the original audio (for the cars engine).

[DarrellS]

As for everyone saying that they are crappy quality, if I were to be making this for myself I would never use these clips, however, I figured it would be a good learning experience because I have never done alot of this stuff. I have made introductions to movies but I have never used custom audio. Also, I recently got DVD-Lab and wanted to try that because I have never used that before either.

True, You never know for sure unless you jump right in an experiment for yourself. Besides, your friend knows what he's getting since he supplied you with the files. I've never used DVD Lab so I can't give you any tips with that.

I did put them on my computer first but still couldnt figure out why they arent working with audio. But I did get them to work using the trial TMPGEnc Xpress 3. The reason I wanted audio is because there are some parts of the intro that will have the original audio (for the cars engine).

That's definately strange because the audio in the files that I downloaded came out fine when I converted them. I see why you want to use the engine sound in your custom audio file, it sounds pretty awesome.
Now if you can find a way to filter out the background music in your audio editing program and add your own music track.

[SEALs1230]

I just finished the introduction piece. Everything worked out great with the editing. I used the avi files created with TMPGEnc Xpress and it worked fine. I havent encoded the introduction to mpeg yet because I dont have my laptop with me (the one with TMPGEnc Plus), so I'm not sure how that is going to work. However, in the past, when I have done introductions, TMPGEnc seems to cut off a small piece of the end of the clip. Its not alot if I was to be doing an entire movie but for something like an introduction(especially this one) when timing is crucial and I need the entire clip, it really hurts the effect I was going for. If anyone might know why this is happening please let me know. Again, I havent tried with this particular intro yet, but this is what has happened in the past. When I get to my laptop tommorow I will try to encode it and then edit this post as needed. I use the guide that I linked in my first post of this subject. Thank you all so much for your help. If I do run into that problem, is there a way for me to link my intro in here so that you can download it and try it maybe? Thanks again.

[DarrellS]

If I do run into that problem, is there a way for me to link my intro in here so that you can download it and try it maybe? Thanks again.

I can't find a way to upload video files here but I use a hosting website that lets you upload up to 10 MB files for free. It's...

http://www.putfile.com